- The Social Implications of Celtic Art -
(Armstrong and Macalister 1920); it is known in Roman Britain from London,
(Wheeler 1930: 54-8), and now Vindolanda. The earliest writing on vellum (which
has already been shown so important in the rise of flowing ornament, pp. 397-8) is
on a psalter of around AD 600, the 'Cathach of St Columba', of which 58 folios
~urvive out of probably about 110 when complete (Lawlor and Lindsay 1916).
This would have needed the skins of at least sixty or so calves, very skilfully prepared
Gfor processes, see H. Saxl in Singer and Holmyard 1956: 187-90). Within the century
the Irish and North British monastic scriptoria between them were producing vast
quantities of illustrated manuscripts on vellum; the Codex Amiatinas alone (stopped
short in Florence through the death of its bearer) on its way for presentation as a
triple gift to the Pope from a Northumbrian monastic house, was 1,030 folios of
calfskin 2 7 ~ X 20 ~ inches; the whole would have needed the skins of at least 1,545
calves (Bruce-Mitford 1969: 2). Only the richest monastic houses could work on this
scale; was this quantity of vellum, with all the skills involved, really being produced
locally by and for the Irish monastic houses, or was some being imported? The
answer might give a slightly different slant to our cultural and economic view of such
institutions (Bruce-Mitford 1989).
These examples will have been enough to show how the Celtic craftsman, as he
fashioned a work, would feel ahead to its user, and also back to other designs he
remembered, all the time being conditioned by the material under his hand and by
his tools. The information thus stored in the artefacts, if read fully, can tell us so
much about Celtic life and thinking. Treating the story from 600 Be to AD 600 shows
us the Celtic command of technology in its progress into industrialized Europe
(a major Celtic contribution to European civilization), and Celtic intellect emerging
into a fully literate scene.
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